Why Theists call atheism a Rejection of God

Its not my video and it doesn't have ads, so I dont know what you mean about money - its lucrative because it answers the title question is a very unique way, and it is to discuss that that this thread was opened. I would have posted a transcription if I had one.

 

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I think an rational person would have to reject faith, after all it claims truth on the most important questions about the universe and the reason is essentially "Cause I/He said so".

Same here. I am a Spinozist.

I dont have anything against religious experience and would willingly experiment with various religions and sects to see if any of them work. My problem is with fundamentalists, extremists, dogmatists and authoritarians. I am willing to surrender my heart completely to God, but I wont do so until I can be sure that God [or that particular god] exists. I was a devout theist for 17 years - my atheism is 49 days old, I a majority of my existence so far has been religious. To have any conversation at all, we MUST take faith out of question. In this world of globalisation, we cannot afford to NOT have conversations with people of different beliefs and faith is the wall that must be fallen.

Yaz said - As I've written before, I'm much more favorable to some ideas of 'God' than to others. I think that the Biblical Yahweh, the Quranic Allah and the Hindus' Vishnu, Shiva and Krishna are just mythical figures from traditional religious stories and I'm almost certain that none of these characters has a real existing referrant. I don't have a clue about any philosophical first-cause or unmoved-mover. And I'm kind of inclined to think that there probably is some fundamental ground of Being, but again, I don't have a clue what it is. My own opinion is pretty much the same. Religoius deities represent already forwarded hypothetical beings to fit the bill of God. Most atheists have considered and rejected such deities [their followers call them God/s], hence my statement. My thread on this topic [strong/weak and certainity in atheism] - http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=111921

I mean a deity, say Rama - a king assended to heaven, a avatar of the creator; or Jesus - a leader and moral teacher, died for redemption and asscended to heaven after 3 days; is just as likely to exist as Santa - a mythic being, gives christmas presents; or the spageti monster - creator of the universe, manipulator of age indicators and the source of gravity. Because they are all anthromorphic, mythic or legendary beings that are, if one thinks about them critically and without bais, not fit as the ultimate great prime mover and creator.

The times are pressing. Pragmatism is an absolute necessity. As I said before -

I must admit that we must always have some amount of scepticism and doubt - the amount varies as per the strength of the thing in consideration - there is little of it about gravity or evolution but a lot of it about string theory and deep physics/cosmology.

This is one of the reasons why deities are rejected as the prime movers.

No, I made the exact distinction you did. If proof is present, it becomes a matter of accepting or denying a known fact. Belief is not required if you have knowledge. But if uncertainty exists, it becomes a matter of choice between beliefs and I believe that which has greater proof or disbelieve that which doesn't have adequate proof.

No. Our position is pretty similiar. He rejects deities [description of god, explified as the description of the date] but not God [God itself, like the date herself]. He means that YOUR God may be all in your head but he might also be a external supreme being. Because his 'In you head' theory is the current better model about God [since it fits well with already present knowledge of psychology] than the cosmic model of God [universal prime mover], I would say that that is the better [for now] theory of what God is. Hence he rejects the God a theist may describe, but is open to the God that may actually exist. Again that difference of Deity and God is essential.

Deity - A candidate running for the position of God. His party is his religion. The non-believers are the electorate.
God - This is the [philosophical, metaphysical] position he is running for. If he fits the actual God [type specimen or real God], he is consider to be God.

 

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Well Said!

 

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What about not knowing about the concept?

 

Again:

"Theist" and "atheist" are not necessarily the kind of qualifiers as "US citizen" or "Caucasian" or "born in Berlin, Germany".
"US citizen" is a qualifier that pertains to the person 24/7, for as long as they are legally a citizen of the US.
One is "Caucasian" 24/7/365, for one's whole life, same as it is always true for a person that they were born in Berlin.

"Theist" and "atheist", however, are for all practical intents and purposes qualifiers like "awake," "asleep," "hungry," "full" etc. Ie. they express a fluctuating or otherwise inconstant quality.

No.

Again:
Sometimes, I act as if God exists. Other times, I act as if God doesn't exist.

As far as persons go, "agnostic" is the kind of qualifier as "theist" or "atheist," see above.

When in a state of agnosticism, one acts the same as an atheist.

 

That is rare, and doesn't apply for the people who participate in discussions that are at least nominally about God.

 

Unlike Bigfoot or John Doe, God is the only personality that is rejected simply by not being accepted.
This is because God is unique, supreme, important above all others. Bigfoot etc. are not.

Atheists have trouble understanding this, as their notions of God place God into categories of entities like "Bigfoot," "John Doe" or "FSM."


An analogy can be made with an employee working under a boss: if the employee doesn't accept his boos, he is rejecting him. An employee cannot work in a company whose boss he rejects or doesn't accept.

 

I'm not trying to tell anyone what to believe. I couldn't even tell you what I believe. But I responded to your video and listed specific responses to what I see as obviously flawed logic. Your response is to justify pragmatism and reject faith. You can't expect a productive dialogue if you fundamentally reject the philosphy of the other person. That isn't a discussion. That is a lecture. That isn't how you tear walls down. It is how you put them up.

And going back to the original point about rejection. As I have shown, the author of the video clearly is rejecting the very notion of God and contradicting his own thesis that atheism isn't a rejection of God. He all to clearly demostrates the very opposite of what he claims.

 

That isn't what lucrative means.

Lucid, perhaps, but not lucrative.

Lucrative means profitable, moneymaking, remunerative.

Rich

 

Oh, sorry - yes then I mean lucid.

 

I am not rejecting your [or theists philosophy]. I am fulfilling my burden of rejoinder by further developing the side I have taken in this debate/discussion. I may be on your side or you may be on mine, but we must either disagree and state why or agree and conclude. So, do you have anything against pragmatism and something about faith being essential? If so, I would like to hear it. And of course we have to put somthing up, but its not a wall, its a filter, necessary so that only the things that can be discussed are discussed. Faith is something we cannot debate, so I rejected it. The flawed logic you think about it not true. He makes the distinction I make, the distinction between deities and God. Deities are religious figures, God is the unmoved mover/ first cause/ creator.

Again, you are not understanding the key point - he explains that he doesnt reject the blind date person, only the version of her that is presented to him. Similiarly, he rejects Yahweh, Allah and other Gods [actually dieties] but he doesn't reject God itself.

 

The prescribed epistemologies for finding God evolved in concert with religion itself, and a process much like natural selection was in play the entire time, the selective 'pressure' being the requirement that it be supportive of a particular belief system and be able to sustain faith in the truth of such. This is essentially why adherents of different religions claim 'certainty' (or something close to it) regarding the truth of propositions that are often mutually exclusive, and why they can all go on forever citing various forms of 'evidence' to justify such a position. It's why people like MoM are convinced that Catholicism is the one true religion, and why people like Adstar are convinced that Catholicism is a bastardization of real Christianity, and why so many Muslim's are convinced that Christian theology (catholic or protestant) is a bastardization of the true word of Allah.

The funny thing though is that much of the 'evidence' that one might use to demonstrate the 'truth' of particular religious beliefs, even mutually exclusive ones, is very similar. For example, when one goes out to pray and comes back feeling like they are 'on fire with the spirit of God', or is witness to a freakish coincidence (or a number of them) that they feel can only be explained by some sort of divine intervention, or has a mind-blowing 'revelation', or is awe-struck by insights into the human condition that are present in some religious text, or is just generally profoundly impressed by the 'results' they are getting from practicing their chosen religion. No matter what it is, it will be interpreted as being supportive of the religion that is being practiced by that person, whichever one it is. And as is so easy to learn just by talking to a number of different people who are devout in their own particular faiths, no one religion has a monopoly on generating profoundly 'spiritual' experiences. What this means is that this type of 'evidence' can not be used to demonstrate the truth of one particular religion over any other. What this means is that it is impossible for anyone who is properly cognizant of all this to embrace just one religion as the truth.

So what's left wynn? Some kind of agnostic theism, or religious pluralism, at best. One is essentially left to arbitrate over the many different conceptions of, and ideas about, who God is, what God wants, and how one should be living one's life, by oneself (or perhaps in the company of other religious pluralists, who are free to dispute almost anything you say, and probably will). And again, no matter what particular shade of freestyle religion one is practicing, the same sort of 'evidence' will be used to support the idea that one is 'on the right path'. But if such 'evidence' can't be used to reliably determine something like whether one particular religion is true above all others, can it even be used to determine the existence of God at all? To address that question, I am going to cut and paste some comments I made during another discussion some time ago:

Unlike many atheists you might engage on these forums, I've had an inside view of what religion is. I understand what it feels like to believe in God; to have faith that borders on certainty. I used to think that this was something that only God could bestow upon someone since it seemed like such a positive affirmation of his existence; a reward or sorts. That "communion" seemed very real, and the emotional and psychological rewards were easily recognizable. It had to be "something" right?

Of course it was something. We are understandably willing to slip back into the mindset that we had as children, where adults were beings of great power and influence that protected us (or were at least in a perceived position to be able to) both physically and emotionally from the harsh realities of the world. Believing something like that once again brings us comfort and confidence. But what about the obvious benefits of communion (prayer) with God? Essentially no different from writing down your deepest thoughts and fears in a diary, or confiding in a friend who offers a supportive ear. Personally I am lucky enough to have a great bunch of intellectual and open-minded friends and I have come away from many a conversation with a clearer perspective and often a new inspirational outlook. But as previously alluded to, sometimes you already know what you need to hear, or what is at the core of a particular problem, and all that is necessary is for you to say it out loud, or write it down.

Finally, I've witnessed just as many spooky coincidences that I would previously have (at least tentatively) characterized as examples of "divine intervention" since moving beyond my faith in God as compared to when I felt certain that God was real. Often, things just happen, and it is we who attach a significance to them (that is usually consistent with what we already want to believe of course).

Since I now understand something about the psychology behind what people may describe as the tangible benefits of faith, the experience of those benefits no longer has any bearing on the question of the existence of the object of that faith. In other words, faith cannot sustain itself if one realizes that faith itself is evidence of nothing, unless one's rationality is overwhelmed by the emotional need to sustain it.

You see wynn, a thinking person can not fail to see the issue here. They can't ignore it. Once one has had the experiences that are necessary in order to understand how this all works, one can't just dive head first into religion again and ignore the fact that 'evidence' isn't really 'evidence'. They can't just 'undo' what they've learned. You'd have to show them something new, something much more compelling, because the position that they are currently taking is perfectly legitimate.

In the end, even if God does exist, the system that religion has set up to demonstrate it is fatally flawed, and therefore you simply can not blame the atheist for demanding something more reliable. That's just the simple truth of the matter.

 

This isn't about me. This is about religious beliefs. And most beliefs require faith, first and foremost. I don't understand what you hope to achieve other than proving that the existence of God can't be proven.

You seem to be out to prove the obvious; that there is no proof. We had that resolved a thousand years ago, so what's the point? What do you hope to achieve? If you expect to resolve this you are just wasting your time.

If he allows that a God could exist, then by definition omnipotence could exist, thus Christ, or Santa, or invisible monsters under my bed could exist if God wills it so. So again, what I'm hearing sounds like total nosense. And I don't see that he makes any such qualfiers in the video linked.

 

Here is a diagram of the argument from the primum movens (better translated as "unchanging changer" in modern vocabulary, I think, instead of the literal "first mover" or traditional "unmoved mover"). It should explain it well enough to understand, this first way of St Thomas' five.

http://imageshack.us/f/696/linje.jpg/

 

There is a certainty that a person gains or develops from growing up within a particular worldview (be it religious or secular). This is a person's basic philosophical outlook, and unless they have formally studied philosophy, or been through extreme experiences, generally nothing can shake that certainty.
Even people who have a formal training in philosophy sometimes keep their basic outlook, no matter what philosophical considerations they may have entertained in the course of their studies.
This kind of certainty has nothing to do with religion per se; it's simply a kind of certainty that generally all people have (and if they don't, they end up in mental institutions).

This is where I think that both theists as well as atheists are often wrong, especially in the popular discourse on religion, making some crucial mistakes.

First of all, some theists are trying to present their particular fancy experiences as proof or evidence that their chosen religion is right or true and the others are false.
The fact is that this kind of meta-epistemological reasoning is not even in line with most theisms!
In their doctrines, theisms explain how a person's faith comes to be, and God plays the crucial role in this process. To claim that the faith is all one's own doing, is a mistake and counter the doctrines.

When a theist makes the claim that by his "gut feeling" or some such he knows he is in the "right religion," that theist is making a claim that is not justifiable by his own religion, and the atheist who believes this or believes this to be the way to gain evidence of the truthfulness of a theism, is making the same mistake.

Most people are what is termed naive realists, ie. they believe that things pretty much are in reality the way they see them.
Most people do not have any philosophical education.
Most people are not able to explain, with philosophical precision, what exactly their stance is.
To take these people's general, touchy-feely claims seriously, is to commit the same mistake oneself.

Most religious people cannot reliably tell a person how to come to believe in God. They are simply not qualified. The fact that they are angry or speak with contempt for atheists and others, does not make those theists right.

Nor are most non-religious people able to discern these things.

I don't think so.

To go with the aforementioned criteria that William James proposed for what makes a genuine option, the reality is that for a specific person, only a limited number, or just one, are actually genuine options.
With some introspection, a person is able to determine which one.

However, a common problem is not so much in how to choose a religion (as people usually have a natural tendency toward this or that one), but how to justify one's religious choice to other people. This problem expands drastically when we live in a multicultural/multireligious society.

So we must distinguish between 1. problems of religious choice, and 2. problems of justifying that choice to particular people.

In practice, these two kinds of problems are often conflated. One must be analytical to tell them apart.

While it is a given that we want to know the truth and that we want to avoid mistakes, the notion of "which religion is the right one" implies the conviction that
1. there is only this one lifetime for action,
2. if we choose wrongly, we will be forever doomed,
3. God has the mentality of an angry, revengeful teenager.

It is not possible to consistently pursue religious choice in terms of "which religion is the right one" without being convinced of those three premises above.

If we loosen our conviction in those three premises, the issue of "which religion is the right one" appears in a new light, and we feel freer to pursue what seems right, without at the same time becoming naive or fundamentalist.

Note that the notion of "which religion is the right one" is typical among the Abrahamic religionists, which all believe the above three premises (although they state no. 3 in somewhat different terms).

With all due respect, this is just anecdotal evidence.

It doesn't mean that every theist is like this, nor does it mean that this is all there is to theism.

I don't think so. Some popular preaching methods are certainly flawed, though.

Atheists have an excellent opportunity to work on their epistemological virtue.
As long as they go along with the mistakes of popular theists, those atheists are bound to get nowhere.

 

I have amended/extended my above post, please consider this when replying.

 

Flawed analogy.
First the "employee" is a term that is defined a priori as having an employer/boss.
There is no such demonstrable employee/boss relationship at play, at least not for atheists.
That is not to say it doesn't objectively exist.

Say the "employee" sits at home, doing the work they feel needs to be done rather than what anyone tells them to do, they answer to noone, noone contacts them, noone sorts out the admin for them.
If these people don't accept that they have a "boss", and consider themself self-employed - are they rejecting their boss, or are they rejecting the claims that they certainly have a boss?
They may merely not know whether they are self-employed or just working for an employer who allows them to think they are self-employed.

There is a difference, I think, between rejecting claims made by people, and rejecting the object of those same claims.

 

As long as you're not able to provide air for yourself etc., you are an employee of the Universe - ultimately, of God who is defined as being the Source and Controller of Everything.

:shrug:

 

First species had to come from somewhere. Even the most atheistic evolutionary biologists acknowledge that Darwinism provides absolutely no answer to where the first cell of life came from, nor was it meant to (although in Darwin's time, the cell was conceived essentially as the ancients conceived an atom, something after which no further division was possible: he didn't realize that the cell was a life of its own).

The (miserably failed) materialist study of the origins of life is called "abiogenesis", with various "abiogenesis hypotheses", but the fact that it's failed miserably doesn't keep them from going at it and trying to salvage and re-interpret the data: it's the modern materialist's motto: "it's an emergent property: we don't understand it, our science doesn't understand it, it contradicts our science, but have faith - science will eventually figure it out". (That is, voodoo science.)

They use that to explain "identity"/"self" and "mind" as often as they invoke it for "origin of life". Dawkins and Sagan are famous for saying that life may have been put on this planet by ultra-evolved intelligent space aliens, and that this is more reasonable than God....

...But what did the space aliens evolve from? What caused the abiogenesis of life on their planet? Ockham's razor slices that thesis apart.

It comes down to: either 1) there is a first cause, or 2) there is an infinite regress. An infinite regress is logically impossible in a past-finite universe, which is now established beyond doubt (although scientists hung on to steady-state theory, so there wouldn't be an ex nihilo creation, far longer than the Church held on to Ptolemaic geocentrism, and a new pseudoscience hypothesis is forwarded at least once a year to try and make the universe or multiverse past-infinite, even at the cost of self-contradiction, so a Theistic foot can't get in the door: the most prominent current examples of this are the ludicrous chaotic inflation theory [quantum fluctuation universe, hypothesis piled upon hypothesis in a house of cards sliced and diced by Ockham's razor] and using imaginary numbers in the Einstein field equations to attempt to remove the possibility of there being an actual "singularity" in time, per se, so that one couldn't go back to the Planck time and say, "Ah ha! This is where time began," instead, having a constant curve through the dimensions).

Hilbert's Hotel thought experiment in transfinite set theory illustrates this point about "infinities" well, even though al-Ghazali (an Islamic theologian) disproved the concept of a past-infinite universe in the 13th century using nothing but basic arithmetic.

 

My views probably do vary somewhat over time, as my ideas change. But that doesn't really impact my views of Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu and that crew, who I've never believed in. It's more a matter of my views on fundamental philosophical questions. In other words, whatever variation there is concerns the philosophical functions more than the mythical personalities. So I'd say that my atheism/agnosticism has always been rather constant, ever since I was a child.

I don't want to confuse the atheist/theist distinction with Christianity's sinner/devout distinction.

It looks to me like you're trying to redirect the discussion into Biblical terms. I don't really want to go there.

In the Bible, our atheist-style disbelief in the existence of the Hebrews' deity was rarely if ever an issue. The Bible imagined the Jews as a nation of priests and was concerned about people living secular lives, living as if their deity didn't exist, wasn't important and wasn't making any demands on them. That's probably one of the motivators of the development of the Jewish law. Again, the problem wasn't that Jews believed that the Hebrew deity didn't exist, it was their failure to be called-apart and to live the holy life that their god had supposedly commanded. That's why the law prescribes no end of seemingly arbitrary practices, from modes of dress to dietary rules, with the object of making it impossible for Jews to ever relax and behave like everyone else around them, even for a moment.

We shouldn't confuse our question of whether or not a god exists with the very different and far more religious question of what our personal relationship should be to a god who exists.

I'm not saying that the latter issue is unimportant. It's vital, absolutely central in the religious life of many Christians (and many Jews and Muslims as well).

But it has little applicability to atheists like me, people for whom devotion to a god is not the highest and perhaps the only virtue there is.